Ukraine was dominated in 2003 by two issues: relations with Russia and the proposals to make constitutional changes to the way the parliament and president were elected. On January 28 Pres. Leonid Kuchma and Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin signed a number of bilateral documents, including one on border issues. Proposals to establish a “joint economic space” with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan were accepted in principle by the parliament in May and signed by the leaders of the four countries in Yalta on September 19. Relations with Russia suddenly deteriorated in October following Russia’s commencement of construction on a dam between the Taman Peninsula (on Russian soil) and Tuzla Island on the Kerch Strait of Crimea. Ostensibly Russia wished to lay claims to the area between the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov and to redraw existing borders. On October 16 Ukraine sent border guards to halt construction, and the parliament issued a resolution to end the threat to Ukrainian “territorial integrity.” The prime ministers of the two countries met on October 24 and agreed that Ukraine would remove its border guards and Russia would stop construction of the dam pending further discussions.

Ukraine’s attitude toward the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was ambivalent. It agreed to send a chemical defense battalion to Kuwait at the request of the U.S., but the legislature condemned the attack on Iraq by a vote of 229 to 5. Earlier claims that Ukraine was supplying radar systems to the Iraqis were quietly dropped.

At home the Kuchma regime encountered increasingly strong opposition from the Our Ukraine faction in the Supreme Council, led by former prime minister Viktor Yushchenko. In late February Yushchenko demanded an end to political terror and murders in the country, and an antipresidential rally of some 50,000 people followed on March 9. At a forum of democratic forces later in the month in Kiev, Yushchenko anticipated that his bloc would form a new political party with a broad base, one that was in alliance with the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc. The authorities blocked another Our Ukraine forum in November in Donetsk.

Behind the conflict lay the prospect of the 2004 presidential election and the president’s proposals to change the political system. In March Kuchma suggested that the president should have the power to dissolve the parliament should it fail to acquire a working majority. He also indicated that the parliament should be elected according to a party list for a five-year term and that there should be an upper and a lower assembly.

Kuchma’s proposals encountered bitter resistance, and he was forced to back off. The opposition supported elections according to a system of proportional representation and the election of the president directly by the parliament, although the 2004 election would still be held by direct ballot, and requiring a two-thirds majority of parliamentary deputies for ratification. In October deputies from the Socialist Party (Oleksander Moroz), the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc, and Our Ukraine prevented access to the rostrum of the Supreme Council and demanded that a vote be held at once on the question of a system of full proportional representation. In December the Constitutional Court ruled that the parliament could legally elect the president in 2004 and that Kuchma could be a candidate in that election, as his first term had begun before the enactment of the constitution.

The economy continued to improve. GDP rose by 4.1% in 2002 and was projected to increase by 5–6% in 2003. Meanwhile, a government economic plan foresaw a rise in the monthly wage to reach 342 hryvnyas (about $65) by 2007. From Jan. 1, 2004, Ukrainian residents would pay a flat tax of 13%, which was expected to boost the consumer market.

Not all sectors of society were satisfied with the economic situation, however. Coal miners went on strike in March for higher wages. The 2003 harvest was anticipated to be so poor that the government imposed food price hikes, which led to protests outside the parliament in early July. The government reacted furiously, dismissing the head of the State Food Department and numerous other officials. Up to seven million Ukrainians were reportedly working abroad because of the difficult situation within the country.

Two important anniversaries received very different commemoration in 2003. The 60th anniversary of the “Volyn massacre” of Poles by Ukrainian insurgents in 1943 was combined with acknowledgement of the repression of Ukrainians by Poles during postwar resettlement. The 70th anniversary of the Ukrainian famine (known in Ukraine as the Holodomor) resulted in a resolution by the Supreme Council on May 15 that stated that the famine had been “an act of genocide” and political terrorism carried out by the Stalinist regime against the people of Ukraine. Ukrainian historians estimated that the famine cost the country between five million and seven million lives.

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